Poczobut given suspended 3-year prison term in Belarus

New York, July 6, 2011--TheCommittee to Protect Journalists condemns the defamation conviction
of Andrzej Poczobut, a Grodno correspondent for the largest Polish daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, and calls for it to be
overturned on appeal.

On Tuesday, the
Leninsky district court in Grodno convicted Poczobut of libeling Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko, and handed him a suspended
three-year prison term, local and international press reported. The court dropped insult charges that prosecutors levied against Poczobut in
March, the independent news website Charter
97 reported.

Authorities said
Poczobut committed those crimes through articles he published in Gazeta Wyborcza and the Belarusian news
website Belarussky Partizan starting
in October 2010; he faced up to six years in jail. Poczobut's trial was held behind closed doors, local press reported.

Poczobut was released
after the court announced the verdict. According to Charter 97, Poczobut told the journalists outside the
courtroom that he did not insult or libel Lukashenko but instead published his
opinion on the president's policies. He said he plans to appeal the sentence.

"Commenting on the
policies of a president in a democracy is not a criminal offense," said CPJ
Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. "We call on the court in Grodno to overturn
this conviction on appeal."

Before his April 6 arrest,
Poczobut told CPJ that the insult charge stemmed from articles he had written in the run-up to the
country's flawed December 2010presidential
election and its aftermath. Grodno police arrested
Poczobut for allegedly violating a travel ban when he tried to leave the city
for the capital, Minsk; two days later, he was indicted with libeling Lukashenko and his stay
in prison was extended by two months.

Poczobut's
sentencing comes amid an ongoing crackdown against independent reporters who
cover protest rallies called "Revolution via social networks," CPJ research
shows. On Sunday, police in Minsk, Grodno, Gomel, and Mogilev detained at least
15 journalists who covered the rallies, the Minsk-based Belarusian Association of Journalists reported. On June 29, police and men in plainclothes in Minsk and Brest detained and beat at least a dozen reporters and broke their
equipment at a similar rally.

At least 400
protesters were detained and arrested on Sunday after they silently marched in
the streets and expressed their opposition to Lukashenko's authoritarian
policies by clapping hands, according to local and international press reports.